


Lost in a Haunted Wood

by chainsaw_poet



Category: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011), Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy - All Media Types
Genre: M/M, Oxford, Pre-Canon, World War II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-20
Updated: 2011-12-20
Packaged: 2017-10-27 14:46:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/296985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chainsaw_poet/pseuds/chainsaw_poet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At the outbreak of World War II, Bill Haydon and Jim Prideaux decide to leave Oxford, but not before Bill sends Jim back for a final visit.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lost in a Haunted Wood

**Author's Note:**

  * For [apiphile](https://archiveofourown.org/users/apiphile/gifts).



> This is a gift for aphipile, who I hope enjoys it, and enjoys the holidays even more. Once I wrote my way into the characters, this was a pleasure to write - I hope it is, at least in part, the sort of thing you were looking for.
> 
> Although the request was for the film, permission was given to merge the book and film canons. So, this story draws on the book for details absent from the film, although it follows the film over the book where appropriate - Hungary, not Czechoslovakia, for example. The details of Bill's letter are also taken directly from the novel; I can take no credit for these. It also ignores the book when necessary, for example, in the date at which Jim joins the service.
> 
> The title and epigraph are taken from W.H. Auden's poem 'September 1, 1939', the full text of which can be found here: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15545.

# Lost in a Haunted Wood

 _  
_

> _"Faces along the bar  
>  Cling to their average day:  
> The lights must never go out,  
> The music must always play,  
> All the conventions conspire  
> To make this fort assume  
> The furniture of home;  
> Lest we should see where we are,  
> Lost in a haunted wood,  
> Children afraid of the night  
> Who have never been happy or good."  
> W.H. Auden, 'September 1, 1939' _

_  
_

They arranged to meet in a pub near Russell Square. Walking past the British Library en route, Jim thought about the reading list that he had taken home from Oxford the previous term and how, since the middle of August, it had lain, neglected, in the middle drawer of his bureau, buried under letters from Bill. Those books would remain unread for some time yet.

The atmosphere was, not unexpectedly, subdued. The wireless murmured quietly in a corner of the room, saying nothing new because there was nothing new to be said – not yet. Everyone was waiting for something to happen. The rest of the clientele, Jim noticed, were older men; scruffy academics from School of Oriental Studies, a few crumpled looking lawyerly types whose clothes might have dated from before the war. The Great War, he mentally corrected himself. The first war.

Jim ordered a pint of bitter, which came out with a good deal of dirt from the pipes, and sat at the table nearest the door. He always arrived first, and had learnt not to look about rooms for a glimpse of Bill’s dark curls, nor to listen out for the sound of his mellifluous laughter. Bill had a preternatural talent – one of his many preternatural talents – for arriving at a rendezvous two minutes after the person he had arranged to meet. He was never late, but never waiting. Back at Oxford, he’d done it at parties too – coming through the door barely sixty seconds after the most interesting person in the room. The most interesting person after Bill himself, naturally.

Oh. That phrase: back at Oxford. Already, he had started thinking of it in the past tense: a chapter that was finished in his life. This was, of course, perfectly true, and there was no sense in thinking about it otherwise. But still, he surprised himself with his own adaptability, and with the ease with which he accepted change. _This too shall pass._

The door swung open and there was Bill, in a new suit and with his hair an inch longer than it had been at the start of the long vacation. He had let it grow out for his exhibition at the end of their first year, thinking that it made him look more like an artist, and had never bothered taming it again. He still carried his Oxford satchel; its charmingly battered emerald leather reminded Jim of treacherous winter cycle rides when the High became a sheet of ice, and oppressive early-summer afternoons spent in Schools. As Bill bent down to remove the bicycle clip from his left trouser leg, Jim noticed that he was wearing red socks. It seemed a gesture of quiet rebellion, an almost sacrilegious act – like laughing at a funeral.

Bill threw up a casual hand, tossed Jim an easy smile, and asked for a gin and tonic: double, with lemon, no ice. Jim mouthed along with the order. He’d made that drink enough times to know that the barman put in too much tonic and not enough lemon. Not sharp enough for Bill, he thought. He was pleased to have his deduction validated when Bill sat opposite him and took a sip, then chewed slightly on the left corner of his mouth, disappointed.

“So,” Bill began, dragging out the syllable and crossing his long legs under the table so that they brushed, unseen, against Jim’s calves.

“So,” Jim mimicked, allowing himself to smile.

“Check, old boy. I asked you first.” Bill took another sip. “God, this gin is awful.”

“What do you expect? There’s a war on you know.”

Bill paused for a moment, raised one eyebrow, and then laughed so loudly that some of the men turned to look at them. In that moment, Jim didn’t care. He hadn’t seen Bill laugh in two and a half months, and, for all he knew then, might not see him laugh again for two and a half more, if ever. He was going to devour the sound – commit it to his memory like a grammar phone recording.

“I’m not going back,” Jim said, once companionable silence had resumed. “And, if I know Bill Haydon, nor are you.”

“Course I’m bloody not,” Bill agreed. “Knew you wouldn’t go back either. You’re not the sort to hide out in the libraries, whilst other chaps risk their necks. You’re no coward.” The toe of a leather shoe brushed the patch of skin beneath the end of Jim’s trouser leg. He wasn’t sure it was accidental.

Cowardice, Jim had learnt from Bill, was the ultimate sin. It had been late at night, 5th week of Hilary term, in the middle of an unexpected cold snap that blew fires out in grates and left water basins frozen in the morning. They had shared a bottle of whiskey and a blanket in an effort to stay warm. It didn’t warm them up, so much as loosen their tongues and make them forget a little about the cold. Do anything, Bill had said as he feverishly clutched Jim’s hand, as long as you’re brave about it.

“Well, it’s England, isn’t it?” Jim replied, wishing, not for the first time, that he had Bill’s gift for eloquence. “Sorry, stupid thing to say.”

“Not at all. The only thing one can say, I suppose. Leave it to the fools to wax lyrical about playing fields and public schools. Things worth saying are, almost without exception, brief. Like ‘Thank you’. Or ‘I’m sorry’. Or ‘I love you’.”

It was just an example, of course.

“Have you signed up yet?” Jim said quickly, needing to change the subject. “I thought we might go together. Today.”

Bill leaned in conspiratorially; Jim mirrored him instinctively. Or maybe it wasn’t conspiratorial. Maybe it looked companionable to the men in the bar. Perhaps Jim was naturally suspicious.

“I’m not signing up,” Bill said, not really dropping his voice.

“But I thought you said-”

“In a manner of speaking, I’m already enlisted.”

“Oh.” It didn’t matter, really, Jim supposed. Sentimental to think that they join up together. Wasn’t as though they could go on being inseparable for ever and ever, Amen, and all that. “Oh. Right, well I suppose I’ll just go by myself.”

“No. You’re going to go to Oxford.”

“Oxford?”

“Absolutely.”

“But we already agreed not to do that!” Jim was aware that he sounded childish. But he hadn’t seen Bill for months, and all Bill wanted to do was talk secrets round in circles.

It was frustrating. It was like when Bill talked about Cicero, or Dostoevsky, or Herodotus, and either expected everyone around him to keep up, or else seemed faintly amused when they didn’t. Jim knew that it was vaguely distasteful, the way that Bill enjoyed knowing things that other people didn’t. But he usually shared those things with Jim, brought him in on the joke. Now Jim was firmly in the dark, shadowed by the faint sense, never far when he was with Bill, that he was being protected.

“You don’t have to look after me,” Jim snapped. Bill’s face suddenly hardened. He looked newly determined. Jim wasn’t sure the expression suited him.

“I’m not looking after you; I’m looking after my country.” His voice was firm. “You’re too good to be put in charge of some pack of Yahoos from the provinces, and shot to pieces in the mud, or left to rot in some prisoner of war camp. We have plenty of idiots who can die that way, and plenty will – make no mistake. You, Jim Prideaux, deserve a better death.”

He pushed a folded piece of paper across the table to Jim. “This is the name of one of my Ancient History tutors. You’re to call on him at 2pm on Tuesday. He’s expecting you for tea.”

“I don’t understand,” Jim said, conscious that Bill had swung his legs out from behind Jim’s own, and was reaching for his satchel.

“You will, I promise,” Bill said sincerely. “You trust me?”

“Of course. With anything.”

“Bad plan, that. Not even sure I trust myself.” Bill drained his drink and grimaced, before, once again, breaking into that easy smile. “That must be the worst gin in London. Come on, I know a good little place around the corner where I can buy you dinner.”

 

It was cold for the first fortnight of September, and unseasonably wet. Arriving into the railway station, Jim had been surprised to see warning posters already pasted up, informing passengers that journeys may be disrupted without notice, and instructing them to take care after dark in the newly-dimmed station lighting.

Stepping out of the station and into the rain, Jim cursed himself for not bringing an umbrella. He saw no one that he recognised on the walk to Christ Church; term had no yet begun and the streets were, in the main, devoid of bicycles and chattering undergraduates. The walk took him very little time, reinforcing the sense that he had outgrown the place. He was not disappointed not to be returning.

The college porter, after taking Jim’s name and allowing him to shake off a little of the rainwater from his jacket, directed him to a room at the top of a staircase on Tom Quad. The name on the door read Fanshawe, and it was opened by a thin man, whose rimless spectacles sat over cheeks that had an unhealthy flush. He looked like he might be a consumptive, and Jim felt unnaturally large as he stooped through the low door and followed Fanshawe into his rooms.

Despite having windows over both Tom Quad and the meadows, the sitting room was dark and filled with books; in the latter, it resembled the room of every Oxford don upon whom Jim had had the necessity to call. Unlike Bill, he did not drink with his tutors for pleasure. He rather thought they felt he was brighter than they had expected he might be, but not quite bright enough to warrant their real attention. One or two commented on his prowess with a cricket bat after match reports in the Cherwell. They seemed less impressed with his languages after learning about his parentage. He doubted Fanshawe would be an exception to this pattern, and wondered, not for the first time, why on earth Bill had sent him there.

One object in the room finally caught his attention. A painting was propped up against the fireplace. It was an abstract canvas of sharp red and ochre shapes that Jim was certain had been painted by Bill, only he didn’t feel he could ask. He felt he ought to sit down in a chair and wait for Fanshawe to begin the conversation, and so he did exactly that.

He did not have to wait long.

“I’d come across your name, naturally.” Fanshawe had a slight lisp, and Jim’s nerves meant that he had to stop himself from laughing. “Made the first eleven as a Freshman.” There was a pause that Jim felt he was supposed to fill.

“That’s right,” he said uselessly.

“And the first fifteen the next year. Two blues. Quite an achievement.”

“I suppose. I enjoy it.”

“Playing the game for the game’s own sake,” Fanshawe said, with a high, slight laugh that Jim didn’t altogether trust. “Admirable.” There was a pause that Jim knew he was not supposed to intrude upon.

“I’m told you speak fluent Hungarian,” Fanshawe began again, a more serious tone in his voice.

“I was educated there,” Jim replied, by way of explanation. “For a while.”

“Why was that?”

“My father’s work took him to Budapest.”

“What sort of work is that?”

“Banking.”

“Prideaux – not an English name.”

“My father is French. Mother’s English.”

“And she didn’t want you educated in England?”

“She wanted it. My father disagreed. He’d heard stories about the school dormitories.”

“And how is your French?” Fanshawe continued, choosing to ignore the insinuation, switching languages to match the question.

“Good, I think.” Jim matched him. “We were in Strasbourg for a year or so. And summers with relatives in Paris.”

“Strasbourg - German, too, then?” Another change of languages; Jim followed suit.

“Naturally.” Fanshawe looked down at a piece of paper on his desk.

“Ah, yes, but you’re reading German, of course.” They were back in English now. “Any others? _Russki?_ ”

“A little,” Jim replied, in the relevant tongue – unclear if Fanshawe understood him or not. “But it’s…” He searched for the right word. “Rusty.” He switched back to English to give further information. “No chance to use it here, you see.”

“Plenty of chances might arise later,” Fanshawe replied cryptically. He looked at the papers again. “Well, your tutors say that you aren’t stupid.”

He turned back towards Jim and stared at him through the barrier created by his spectacles. They distorted his eyes so that they appeared smaller, colder. Jim stared back, impassively.

“He’s right,” Fanshawe said, finally. “You do appear rather parentless. I can see why he finds it attractive.” Fanshawe could only be talking about Bill. God, what on earth had Bill said about him? “Parentless”. Did he think Jim was some kind of orphan who needed watching over? And more than that, Fanshawe was making it sound as though…

“If you’re trying to imply,” Jim began defensively, but Fanshawe only laughed again, tossing his head back almost girlishly.

“I’m going write to a few people I know in London,” he said, sitting down. “Recommend you for a little bit of work that’s just come in. They’re looking for useful people, what with there being a war on these days. And I think, Mr Prideaux, that Young William is right about you being exactly the type they are looking for.”

 

Bill’s landlady was a large woman who wore a white apron, and tutted loudly at the bottles of cheap beer that Jim was cradling in his left arm. However, when Jim asked for Bill, her expression changed entirely and she beamed at Jim broadly, offering to show him up to Bill’s rooms. Then, as Bill ushered him inside, Jim could hear Bill politely refusing very pressing offers of tea and toast.

“You really are too kind, Mrs Lockett. I’m sure Jim and I will manage to muddle along here just fine by ourselves.” He kept up a broad, boyish grin until the moment at which the doorlatch caught. Then, turning to face Jim, he leant back on the door, groaning, and pulled his fingers through his curls.

“Urgh, she’s intolerable. Terribly well meaning, but absolutely intolerable. Good thing I shan’t be around much.”

Jim glanced around the rooms. They weren’t exactly large. Nor were they in any state of cleanliness or tidiness; instead, they had a sense of disarray that Bill would have called artistic, and Jim found slightly uncomfortable.

The small sitting room was overwhelmed by crates in various stages of being unpacked. An easel was folded up in a corner, and canvases were staked up in any spare floor space. Most were wrapped in brown paper, but of the few that were exposed, Jim recognised one from the exhibition. He’d hung it upside-down when they’d been setting up for the exhibition, and a couple of Bill’s friends from the Art Society had laughed, until Bill stood in front of it for several moments, before coolly declaring that he thought it an improvement. It had remained in that position for the rest of the show.

“I know – pokey, isn’t it?” Bill said, voicing Jim’s thoughts as usual. “All I could afford with such short notice. It’ll do for now. As I said, I don’t expect to be here much.”

“It’s fine,” Jim lied, wondering why on earth Bill didn’t simply stay at the sumptuous Kensington house of his parents, to which Jim had addressed all his summer letters. It wasn’t a discussion to be had now. Not holding out much hope of locating a bottle opener, Jim opened the bottles of beer against the edge of the table; the furniture was too shabby for anyone to notice a little extra wear. He handed one to Bill.

“So,” Jim said, sitting on an upturned crate and trying to stretch out his large frame in the small space without sending Bill’s possessions flying.

“Ah,” Bill said, taking a bottle from Jim and lying on the rug in front of the cold grate. “You got in there first this time.”

“I met with Fanshawe.”

“You did? I suppose he explained everything.”

“Quite.” Jim paused and took a large gulp of beer. “He called you ‘Young William’”. Bill laughed and rolled his eyes.

“I’ll bet he did. Christ, he’s a horror. Did I ever tell you about the time that he -” But Jim cut him off.

“Were you going to tell me about your furtive missives to dons who talent-spot for the secret services? Because that’s what Fanshawe does, isn’t it?”

“That is, indeed, what they do.” The boyish grin was back. “I was going to tell you. Eventually.”

“You’re far too fond of secrets,” Jim grumbled. “Probably why they wanted you.”

“Oh, I’m sure of it.” Bill rolled onto his stomach and looked up at Jim. His shirt, unbuttoned at the collar and untucked, had ridden up, revealing a patch of smooth white skin across the small of his back.

“So what exactly did that letter of yours to Fanshawe say?”

“Oh, a lot of things. Part of it went along the lines of, if you want the marvellous William Haydon then you’ll have to take the equally marvellous James Prideaux, otherwise sorry, boys, but no dice.”

“Like hell it did,” Jim snorted. “I want to know what you wrote about me.”

“I was quite firm with them,” Bill said chuckling. “Prideaux, or bust, I wrote. We come as a pair, or not at all.”

“Come off it, Bill – what did it say?” His rough demand was off kilter with Bill’s ludic tone. Jim put down his beer and stood up towering over Bill, who gazed up at him through his long lashes and even longer curls.

“No, you’ll never get it out of me, not a word!” Bill declaimed, crying out as Jim practically threw himself on top of him. They wrestled not-altogether playfully for a few moments, rolling over on the rug a few times, until Jim was pinning down a rather flustered-looking Bill, both hesitating over what to do next. Jim was aware that he was pressing slightly too forcefully on Bill’s shoulders, so that his friend was probably in pain judging by the tension in his mouth.

“Did you call me parentless?” Jim said, forcing a harsh note into his voice.

“That, or something synonymous,” Bill replied languidly, as though it didn’t really matter.

“Well, I’m not, you know!” Jim snapped. “Just because I’m not you - with all your great school chums, and your ruddy cousins! I wasn’t some orphan, begging to be adopted until you deigned to come along.” And he wasn’t, was he? That hadn’t been their friendship at all, had it?

“I’m very glad you’re not me,” Bill said in the same low tone. “And, if you must know, I was paying you a compliment.”

“Oh, I bloody well know that! Fanshawe told me that much. Made out like we were…” He couldn’t bring himself to say the word, although he could think of plenty of synonyms for it, to use Bill’s phrase. Why couldn’t he say it? He’d never wanted Bill’s gift for language quite so badly. If it wasn’t true – and it wasn’t true – why couldn’t he just say it?

Resorting to action over words, Jim shoved Bill’s shoulders hard into the floorboards, taking cold pleasure in the way Bill flinched upon contact. Jim realised, quite suddenly, that they were both breathing far too fast.

“Hence, our Jim’s rather wide familiarity with parts foreign, and his rather parentless look, which I find irresistible.” Bill’s voice echoed up against the floorboards. He sounded as though he were quoting something – which, of course, he was. “Jim acts from instinct, he is functional. He’s my other half, between us we’d make one marvellous man…”

Bill’s lips were trembling now, and Jim couldn’t decide whether he wanted to punch them or kiss them until they bled. But Bill was still speaking, although not quoting anymore.

“I suppose this is all horrible clichéd. Declarations of love on the eve of war,” he said. The habitual effortless grace was all but gone now. Jim could tell this required effort; this was a sprinter trying out for the marathon. Bill turned his head to the left, eyes fixated on where a bottle of beer – Jim’s – had been knocked over in the tussle and had spilled onto the floorboard, the yeasty smell emanating upwards and already turning stale and sour.

“We should have done this in Oxford,” Bill continued, apparently heedless of Jim’s loaded silence, or the strong fingers still digging into his shoulders. “There’s space for this sort of talk in Oxford. Here, it just seems rather sordid.” He swallowed hard and forced out some more words. “I was half-cut when I wrote that letter. I’m not saying that I didn’t mean any of it. Quite the opposite, in fact. But I could have been more discreet. You needn’t worry, though. There was nothing truly incriminating, and besides…”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake, stop it,” Jim said, and kissed him.

If asked about it later, Jim might have said that he chose the kiss over the punch because it was more certain to silence Bill. It was impossible for Bill to continue with his uncharacteristically meretricious monologue with Jim’s lips against his own. Bill might have been able to speak through blood and broken teeth; Jim would have at least expected him to try. And whilst the punch would have had a certain quality of definite action that Jim always found satisfying, the kiss, he soon discovered, could be equally as violent and infinitely more pleasurable.

It was not Jim’s first kiss. There had been a maid in Paris who, when he was practising bowling alone at the set of stumps his uncle had erected for him, had fetched Jim’s ball from behind the wicket in such a way that Jim knew that it would be all right to try something. It had been quick and chaste, with the set of stumps in between them, preventing their bodies from getting too close. Then Jim had pulled away and flushed, the genetic inheritance of Englishness revealing itself in his embarrassment. Suddenly, he couldn’t find any French with which to compliment her, or at least thank her. The girl had laughed, shaken her head at the lost boy, and walked away.

Jim thought of all this as Bill’s lips pressed hard into his own, the slight stubble on his upper lip catching on Jim’s skin. He felt a pair of hands, roughened by turpentine and cold studios, slip underneath his collar and over the muscles of his shoulders, which spasmed as though tiny jolts of electricity were passing through them. It was inexpert, teeth caught against each other more than once as hot breathes mingled. Jim began to feel something warm and tight between his legs and, unsure whether the crime was Bill’s or his own, didn’t dare to check.

Then, very suddenly, Bill pulled away from him.

“The door,” he said. “It isn’t locked.”

Jim rolled off the top of him, and Bill, looking distinctly rumpled, clambered inelegantly to his feet and hunted for a key. Having secured the lock, he looked down at Jim, panting. His shirt was creased, and one of the lower buttons had come lose. Jim imagined that he must also be in a similar state of disarray.

“There’s one more secret,” Bill said. Jim nodded, giving permission. “When I said, in the pub, that I did it for England – that I was looking after my country – that was a lie.”

Of course it was, Jim is ready to begin. Of course, you were just looking after me, like you always do. Stepping in to stop me being trodden on. Dragging me along by your coat tails, and expecting me to be grateful for it, and oh God, I am. I am.

“I did it for me,” Bill said, voice cracking slightly on the last syllable. “Because I couldn’t bear to – and, certainly, there’s no guarantee that we’ll – but there’s at least a chance…”

Jim knelt up, placed his hands on Bill’s waist, and pulled him back towards the floor.

 

Decades later, he found the reading list again. It was in a box which was handed to him, along with the payoff, at the end of his stay at the Nursery. Some papers from your flat, the warden had explained. Mr Haydon cleared them out the day after the news broke. Didn’t want the press getting hold of them. Kept them safe in the Circus, so that they were waiting for you when you… Well, here they are, anyway.

That night, in a cheap bed and breakfast in a Hampshire village, he opened the boxes one by one. The letters from Bill he placed to one side, for a day when he was stronger. There would be a time when he could take comfort from the fact that Bill was loyal until the end; that it was Bill who got him back. But now all he could feel was the bitterness of a necessary end to their friendship, imposed from outside. They would never speak again. If positions were reversed, Jim might have faltered and tried to make contact, but Bill was always cleverer than him, and wouldn’t try any of that – not for all his bending of the rules. There would be no more letters.

He looked instead for something without such an immediate connection to Bill; something from a past outside of the Haydon and Prideaux double-act. There wasn’t much. So when he chanced upon the reading list, he snatched it up and scanned its contents.

The sheet was yellowed; the paper thinning. Jim could only just make out the list of ten or so texts in Middle Low German, varying editions carefully referenced with his tutor’s notes on which were preferred. Reading their titles, Jim tried to remember which, if any, he actually read. He wondered if, now, there would be time to study them, to make up the lost ground, and realised that he was weeping again. Not, this time, for things that had happened, but for things forever interrupted.


End file.
